Friday Five highlights music by Washtenaw County-associated artists and labels.

This edition features indie-gaze by The Nuts, post-everything by Post-Ford, modern classical by Carlos Taboada, remixes of Annie Bacon songs, and electro-pop by Lovepark.

The Nuts, "Winter Song"
This Ann Arbor band of UMich students has only released two songs—the soaring "All I Can" and the new "Winter Song"—and I'm ready to declare them my fave new local act. Like its predecessor, "Winter Song" straddles indie rock and shoegaze, this time with a stripped-down verse and a lush chorus, which reminds me a bit of Kitchens of Distinction (one of the more forgotten noise-pop bands from the early 1990s). If you want to see what appears to be one of the best indie-rock bands currently existing in our county, go to WCBN's Back 2 School concert at The Blind Pig on Thursday, September 19 when The Nuts play with Ladyfinger and Cedar Bend (another A2/UMich band I'm really high on).

Post-Ford, Eyes for Weeping
Sometimes Bandcamp bios are self-effacing; sometimes they're goofy; and sometimes they're just plain accurate. Ypsilanti ensemble Post-Ford declares its sound as "lo-fi emo folk musique concrete tape music free jazz, noise all at once." Eyes for Weeping appears to be a collab with the "Rocky Mountain Region's premier new music group," Playground Ensemble. The first four tracks feature droning strings ("Eyes for Weeping," "Landau") and almost jaunty small-group classical ("George and the Plane"). Then comes the lovely, fingerpicked guitar folk song "A Stone's Throw" with cello accompaniment. I was thinking that most of this record belongs to Playground Ensemble based on another Post-Ford release from this year: the completely lo-fi ballad "Lean-To." But then I listened to the January 2024 track "Nothing New," which is 10 minutes of jazz, classical, and world-avant music featuring a mega-lineup: U-M prof Andy Milne, piano; Christie Dashiell, vocals; Ingrid Laubrock, saxophone; Yoko Reikano Kimura, koto; Chris Tordini, bass Kenny Grohowski, drums; and Larry Willett, narrator. I legit don't know what's what or who's who with Post-Ford, which is why I can't wait to hear what this project does next.

Carlos Taboada, University of Michigan Philharmonia Orchestra, "Phantasy in Red"
In my blurb of Woven Worlds, the UMich master's thesis by Carlos Taboada, I mentioned that influences of jazz, Aaron Copland, new music, electronica, and modern classical appear across the four tracks. "Phantasy in Red" is equally eclectic, incorporating 12-tone music, jazz, bossa nova, and a wide-screen vision. The piece has been floating around for a couple of years—the video below captures when it was recorded—but Taboada recently remastered the track (which was on his Soundcloud page) and put it on streaming. 

Annie Bacon, Remixes
Ann Arbor singer-songwriter Annie Bacon likes to hand off her songs to Do I Dare (aka Reid Oda) for remixes; he reinterpreted songs from her previous two releases and has done so again with four tracks from Bacon's 2024 folk-rock gem Storm. These remixes offer thick and brooding synth-pop takes on Bacon's already catchy but deeply emotional tunes.

Lovepark, "Settle" b/w "Lose You"
Ann Arbor's Lovepark released a killer Exposure Mix around this time last year featuring dance remixes of pop and R&B tracks. That same bright flavor seasons "Lose You," one side of this two-song single of original music. But "Settle" is an excellent mid-tempo ballad with quiet vocals, fat bass lines, and a nice mixture of EDM squelch and '80s synth-pop tones.

Christopher Porter is a library technician and the editor of Pulp.